July 7, 2017

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Israel reportedly has US-made drones capable of launching grenades

by John_A

Aerodynamics and physics dictate that you can’t quite strap an assault rifle onto a DJI Phantom and expect it to fly and hit a target. Florida company Duke Robotics has apparently devised a way to keep a drone steady while compensating for a gun’s recoil. “Though a system of flexibly connected pates, the TIKAD distributes the backward momentum in a way that keeps the vehicle stationary in the air,” Defense One writes. “A ten-pound robot gimbal allows six degrees of movement freedom and the ability to rapidly re-target the weapon and camera.”

Supposedly the system can keep a UAV steady whether it has a grenade launcher for a payload, or a pistol — so long as the weapon is under 22 pounds. The Israeli military reportedly has already bought a number of the TIKADs. Duke describes it as such: “The TIKAD allows us to utilize completely new capabilities against terrorist groups and reduce the number of deployed ground troops, and therefore, the number of casualties.” The remote drones would keep soldiers off the front lines and thus, safer, and you can bet that police departments will be interested in these UAVs as well. Almost a year ago to the day, law enforcement officials in Dallas used an armed bomb-drone to kill a gunman following hours of attempted negotiations.

North Dakota recently passed a bill that allows for weaponized drones so long as they aren’t “lethal,” for instance. Then there’s The Skunk by Desert Wolf that can fire 4,000 paintballs from a quartet of barrels mounted underneath, at a rate of 80 rounds-per-second. Now we have the ability to fire live ammunition from our unmanned aircraft. Yup, this is the future we live in.